The Extra Mile
by ultraviolet9a
Summary: Just a small history recap from a different perspective. Must have been done before, but I don’t think you will see the last paragraphs coming. I hope not, at least. Cuz Metallicar is love. [Spoilers for last episodes of season 1 and Route 666


**The extra mile

* * *

**

**Zero Miles.**

When he first came to claim her, he walked slowly around her like a wolf marking his territory. Then he passed his hands over her curves in silence and she heard the small longing sigh and thought _Ah…that's what love at first sight really sounds like_.

When John Winchester took her out on their first drive and heard her engine roar, he thought the very same thing.

* * *

**Milepost 1.**

He was a good owner, she thought. It wasn't just the maintenance. It was the way his hands felt on her wheel when he was driving her, sometimes keeping a beat to the classic rock he had her play. It was the tone of pride his voice had when he drove with his buddies around (always a pack), or a girl (always alone).

And even with cigarettes and booze and the occasional back seat fling, he always made sure that she stayed clean.

_Ah_, she thought. _That's what love really feels like_.

And she didn't think if the love she meant was his or the other way round.

* * *

**Milepost 2.**

"Mary…" John sighed, face hidden in long blonde hair. He inhaled deeply, taking in her scent, kissed wildly down her throat, hands tracing her curves, his whole world filled with that flavour, and the woman sighed and whispered his name over and over again.

_Ah_…she thought again. She had heard the small longing sigh he made when he saw the luminous warm woman smiling at him, walking up to him on their first date, and she had heard that sort of sigh before and recognized it. And she had thought, just as she was now that _Ah…love at first sight. That's what John loving a woman feels like._

There was no other woman in the back seat from that day on.

* * *

**Milepost 3.**

She couldn't get a lot of humane things, but she supposed that the ring John had slid over Mary's finger parked in the drive-in had been kind of like the key ring holding her own ignition keys. A promise. A commitment. Responsibility. Love.

Mary Winchester laughed when John caressed the shiny black metal calling her his baby and John winked at her and then they'd drive off here and there, and sometimes wouldn't even wait to get back home, but be in the back seat like in the first days they had met.

"John," Mary said one day.

She was parked, all nice and cosy. Mary opened her back door and slid in, dragging John behind her.

"You know, sweetheart," John laughed. "We do have a bedroom now."

Mary laughed again, that clear, bright ring of hers.

"Yeah, but what I got to tell you has to be said at the place it happened."

There was silence for a while.

"Where what happened?" he carefully asked, and Mary's hand slid over her belly and smiled, and then John grinned and laughed and held her and kissed her.

_Ah_, she thought again. She didn't know what had happened, but she guessed it was joy.

She found out nine months later, when Dean was born. And she thought again, wet from Mary's waters breaking, listening to her screaming, as the little wrinkled pink thing came crying into the world and into her that _ah…that's what pain feels like. And joy. And love_.

When Mary was pregnant again, years later, she had not forgotten. But this time John and Mary Winchester actually made it to the hospital.

* * *

**Milepost 4.**

She had never seen John cry like this before. Sure, there had been tears when Dean was born, but this sort? Never. Never felt him cradled over her wheel, face hidden in his arms, crying and shaking with the rough tearless sobs of those who have lost their soul.

She had felt the fire and had been afraid, and had been feeling cold and dark and numb, like Dean tucked for the first time in the front seat instead of the back, holding baby Sam, as if John couldn't bear the thought of losing them out of his sight.

They had driven to a house John visited often with Mary, except Mary was nowhere to be seen. It was a friend's house, she guessed, and John had taken the kids in and after a long time and police questions he had taken her out on a spin. Just her and him. Like in old times. But not good ones, she thought.

That day, John breaking down inside of her, she discovered one more feeling. It felt cold, and dark and lonely and helpless. _Ah_…she thought, thinking back to the day Mary had been hollering giving birth in her back seat. _I had been wrong all along. _This_ is what pain _really_ feels like.

* * *

_

**Milepost 5.**

Things changed after that. There was still rock music and driving and Dean and little Sam in the back seat again, but no more Mary. And no more John, she thought. Not the John Winchester that had caressed her and started her engine with a sigh, making her think of love at first sight. Not the John that would hum and love his wife and sing loudly to her laughing while she was telling him to stop torturing her with his voice.

This John was different. This life was different. This life made her swallow miles and miles of road, parked outside different houses and motels, be it day or night. Made her carry weapons in her trunk, and John's blood and sweat when he got back.

_From the hunt_, she thought. She had enough years to figure it out.

This John was not carefree and singing. But Dean and Sam were growing up, and their hands touched her with love, recognizing her as home, and there were their words and their own singing and fighting and laughing and playing and nagging and she thought that _Ah... So love, like cars, comes in many shapes_.

* * *

**Milepost 6.**

John taught his boys a lot of things. Taught them how to shoot and use salt and defend themselves. Used a voice, that even when tender, was hard in its core. John taught them, she thought, how to be him after the fire. Somehow.

He also taught Dean how to drive her and years later Dean taught Sam how to drive her too and she learned to recognize the difference.

When Dean's hands first gripped her wheel, there was a slight tremble in her engine recalling the feel of young John Winchester, and she thought _Ah…so this is what Dean feels like. _

And the boys grew up, and she grew older along them. And there was hunting, and blood, and bonds and fighting and pain. And laughter. And love.

And she was older now, smarter, knew the world better.

And when, after another fight, Sam slammed her door shut and pouted on her hood, she thought _Oh John…you're losing him_.

And she was older now, smarter, knew the world better. And had been right.

* * *

**Milepost 7.**

She never thought that John would hand her over, but when he did, it felt right. Because her keys were gripped by Dean's hands, and she had known love with John and had learnt how to recognize it, and it didn't feel like much handing over to begin with, because both John and Dean kept the seat in the same position (and didn't push it back like long tall Sam) and needed the mirrors in just that angle and their hands gripped the wheel in the same way.

And she liked it better, because there was rock music still, only this time there was humming again, and singing.

Dean had gotten drunk in her for his first time, and puked and cleaned her up.

Dean had gotten laid in her for the first time, and she knew, because she knew her boy, and felt when he was nervous, and he wasn't nervous after that ever again, not with any girl in the back seat.

And she thought now, Dean so much like John, _So that's what life feels like. Like getting back to the same road over and over again._

She missed Sam of course, but she thought she'd miss Dean more. She didn't miss John because she had Dean, and besides, John was most of the times driving ahead in his new shiny truck. And, she had known, with a kind of fierce pride, that with the truck there had been no longing sigh.

Things without Sam felt different, she thought, and in her mind felt like a wheel being taken off a car. But that car rode on.

In the beginning telling their feel apart was really hard. Now she could separate them easily. Dean was the one with the taillights on, she thought, and wondered how she could ever mistake those two.

She didn't think of Sam much. She swallowed miles and miles and then one day, that changed too.

* * *

**Milepost 8.**

One day Dean picked Sam up and went to find John. She hadn't seen Sam in many years, and he felt different. But he too was her boy, so when The Woman In White tried to kill him, she tried her best. The ghost felt cold and empty when it hijacked her and took away all warmth she had from Dean. She felt helplessness. And despair. She was glad and hurt when Dean shot her window down saving his brother and when Sam drove her inside the haunted house, and the Woman in White had tried leaving her, she put all her might and kept the ghost with her, forced her to come along for the ride too.

_Riding goes both ways, sweetheart_, she thought smugly, scratched and dented, but didn't worry, because she knew that Dean would take care of her.

* * *

**Milepost 9.**

There was a fire again, and after the fire Sam had felt like John. This was pain, pain all over again, and rage and hurt.

_Sam's driving down John's road again_, she thought and felt sad, and welcomed Sam again in her embrace.

They were John Winchester's boys and they were her boys and life was like driving down the same road over and over again.

* * *

**Milepost 10.**

She was afraid when the ghost truck hit her from behind. She was afraid, and tried her best because she was carrying Dean and Dean was her boy and she would protect him.

She wasn't afraid when she stood on the remains of the old church. It had been Sam's plan and Sam would never let anything happen to Dean. And Dean would never let anything happen to her.

"No more killer trucks for me, thank you," Dean had said when they had been driving away from that place, away from the pretty girl that had broken his heart once.

_Ah…no more killer trucks_, she thought, but wondered because life was like driving down the same road over and over again.

* * *

**Milepost 11.**

She lost count of how many miles she's swallowed with the Winchesters riding her. _It must be over twenty years_, she thought, and that thought stunned her. She didn't feel old, but she could see how cars changed shapes and sizes and faces. _Like love_, she thought. _Just like love_.

The world had changed around her, but she counted change in the change she saw in her boys, and the change was big.

She rejoiced when all three got together, she their silent partner, but felt the change. All wheels were together again, but the engine…was different.

"If I knew you'd let her rust, I wouldn't have given you the damn thing in the first place," John muttered and she wanted to open her door and hit him, because _You have forgotten, John_, she thought. _You have forgotten_.

And she was thinking about that long longing sigh. Of the miles she had with them.

Couldn't imagine herself without them.

Couldn't imagine herself with anyone else.

* * *

**The Extra Mile.**

She had learned, long ago from John and Dean and Sam, that blood was blood and family ties.

_Ah_, she had thought.

Family was blood, but family, she thinks is also grease and oil and miles run. It's hands caressing her wheel and living in her. And she's a car and cares for the miles she's swallowed. And cares for her boys. All three of them.

And knows that life is a road to be driven over and over again. And knows that fire is grief.

So when the killer truck comes (not a ghost this time, but a demon) ramming into her, she hopes that her metal is strong enough. And she fights. Fights fire. She won't go up in flames.

It takes up all that makes her what she is to keep the fire out, and she does. _My boys, _she's thinking_. My boys. _

She knows the demon will approach. Knows that her boys are passed out. Knows there is nothing she can do about it and there is the same feeling of helplessness. Because she knows that right now there are no other miles left in her. They've all been used up.

But this…this is _family_. And family is blood and oil and tears and grease. And she'll be damned if she'll lose them again.

So she goes that extra mile. Goes that extra mile and with her last, last spark makes the radio keep playing, keep on playing loud, into the night.

* * *

-The End. 

DISCLAIMER: The Winchesters and everything relating to them belongs to me only in a wishful thinking kind of way. Don't sue, yadda, yadda.


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